Friday, September 05, 2008

Packs of baseball cards are rare in the UK, let alone boxes. So when a box of 'Phil Rizzuto Baseball' cards with 36 packs and 7 cards per pack came up for auction on e-bay, I jumped and won. Nobody else bid, so they must have known something I didn't.

Phil Rizzuto Yankee Legend. Check.

Comic Images? Right..

ALL CHROMIUM ! OK.

It should work, shouldn't it? But I'm not sure it does.

The box offers the possibility of:

6 Phil Rizutto MagnaChrome cards,

1000 Phil Rizutto Autograph cards,

'Diamond covers' 3- card subset,

Limited Edition Medallion Card.

Here's one of the 36 (actually 30ish now-I gave some away)packs.

Judge for yourself.

47 Japanese Poster.

A 1950's poster advertised a game in the Japanese major leagues' Pacific Division.

40 Patsy Dougherty

A 1910 tobacco card featuring a well-known outfielder for the Chicago White Stockings.

33 Lorillard Chicago BBC

Lorrillard a tobacco company issued four trade cards in 1885. Each card featured a different team; this one is of the Chicago Base Ball Club, otherwise know as the White Stockings.

58 Scorecard Artwork

A 1940's illustration of a postcard issued by the St.Louis area tourism board.

25 Cincinnati American Association

An 1882 team photo. The card goes onto explain that uniforms were not worn by teams but that each position had a specific uniform. As a result, every catcher in the league could be identified by his uniform as could every left fielder, pitcher, second base, etc. Apparently it was a short lived practice.

64 Casey at the Bat

The art of the weekly children's magazine 'St Nicholas'. The message of the cartoon encouraged children to follow their dreams just like Casey.

48 Safe Hit Vegetable Crate Label

Baseball was all the rage in the 1930's and its images were popping up all over. This is label for fruit and vegetable crates.

Sorry there it is no MagnaChrome, autographs or Diamond studded subsets in this pack.

5 comments:

Comic Images was a company that produced card sets of (surprise) Comics, tv shows, collectible card games and such. They jumped into the Baseball card market with this unlicensed set. It is a 90 card set with the inserts you mentioned. The set was not popular at all when it came out and my 2002 price guide lists the complete set at 8 dollars and the autograph at 35. There's also a promo card of Rizzuto advertising the set, but it's not likely to be found in packs. Moat of the set is made of vintage baseball photos that likely slipped into the public domain. There are a few vintage tobacco cards in there like the Dougherty card you pulled. Stars in the set include Rizzuto, John McGraw, Cap Anson, Charles Comiskey, Teddy Roosevelt and a card featuring the poem Casey at the Bat. It's a nice set for people who love early baseball history, but the chromium technology doesn't seem to fit the vintage subject matter to me.

"...but the chromium technology doesn't seem to fit the vintage subject matter to me." -- very good assessment, I was thinking the same thing. Chrome on vintage reprints is like the "Honeymooners" in color; authenticity is lost.

You got a box of this stuff! It looks pretty nice to me although I agree that chrome on vintage style baseball cards doesn't make sense. These remind me a bot of the Topps Baseball Card Insert set this year. There were chrome versions of these as well,